


Of Ache and Hollow

by Kasan_Soulblade



Category: Pocket Monsters: Red & Green & Blue & Yellow | Pokemon Red Green Blue Yellow Versions
Genre: Gen, Poverty, based off a Rocket Nuzlocke run, criminal activity, rules are in the notes
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-05-26
Updated: 2017-05-26
Packaged: 2018-11-05 02:43:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11004315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasan_Soulblade/pseuds/Kasan_Soulblade
Summary: He'd found a dead spearow, it's body gutted its limbs sprawled and barely holding on.  it was well past ripe in the decay scale but there'd been a bit of glint about one ankle.  He'd snapped it off, nothing more than thinking about selling.  Scrap metal could be a meal maybe three if he shined it right.There'd been a letter inside, and more the hollowness in his guts than actual guts got him to respond to a correspondence the sane wouldn't dare.He hadn't expected a response via a different beleaguered bird.  Hadn't expected the response to follow him to his apartment.  But he'd written again, then again, then been offered to live out a dream he'd never dreamed.But it would be as a lie.And it'd been more to stave off the aching hollowness than anything else he said yes.





	Of Ache and Hollow

**Author's Note:**

> A Rocket nuzlocke challenge novelized with some stipulations not found in the original. You can use your starter until first gym after that it cottons on to your true nature and rebels. 
> 
> All mon can be caught but only those used by the Rockets can be kept. 
> 
> All others must be turned in for pay to pay off living expenses, rarity and power of the mon add to value and remember, as an adult rent and living expenses must be paid, fifty percent of all income can't be used (deposited if possible and never touched) or must be sunk into something worthless in the shops (in my run through I had a tone of rope).
> 
> After the second gym you gain enough of a repute you can't use pokecenters for healing from towns, those in the middle of nowhere can be used once. You can use them to switch out mon and deposit extras and unusable ones to pay "extra expenses".
> 
> Also the Nuzlocke aspect kicks in, anything that dies from this point on stays dead, after all reputable centers will kick you out, not heal anything you bring in.
> 
> Rent is due the beginning of each play/start up of the game, you don't have it you have to give up one member of your main team starting with your most powerful and going down.
> 
> Other terms will be added as I think of them. Good luck for anyone wanting to try this run themselves.

Whoever said squirtles couldn’t learn fighting moves like karate chop were out of their minds.  Bite was supposed to be a thing of higher levels, still the trainer sported damage from both, was bruised and bloodied courtesy of the thrashing turtle that’d first trashed his pokeball and apartment.  Considering most of the damage was now being focused on _him_ now it was obvious the little bastard was trying to nerve his way up from property damage to trainer-a-cide.

Having pulled the blue cretin far enough that it’s small limbs were flailing against nothing he considered shaking the thin into unconscious.  Weird the thoughts he got against doing so, about how doing so to kids broke their little brains, and the thing was kid shaped enough (shell as a backpack and thinking that made his stomach lurch) that he couldn’t quite get himself up to rattling the things brains to tapioca consistency.

Figures the turtle decided drowning via water gun was the next step up from tearing apart it’s trainer with limb and tooth.

Spitting and sputtering the trainer dropped the bloody thing to scrape his dark limp hair from his face and about a gallon of water from his airway.  During he decided enough was enough.  No more talking about things and talking the water monster around.  His blind kick aimed at the click clack of claws against faux flooring lead to something grunting.

“A bit of help here boys!”

To his holler the Calvary picked their blunted muzzles out of their chow.  One spit a kibble at the rebellious ‘mon, rearing up on purple haunches to then better watch the show, the other one huffed at him for hollering then went back to stuffing it’s face.  Those two, the trainer decided, were going to be named “shipped” and “Out” respectively.  He’d even send them off as a pair, maybe the big boss’d get a chuckle over the lot.  Rattata number one, first caught right out of Pallet rose from its nap to glare blearily at the situation.  Decision made it shook itself sharply and when its’ owner failed at tackling it’s blue assailant that was going long ways about and aiming for the door besides, well the violet rat thing did not.  

Funny how a creature so small, shell or no, could make such a loud crack when it hit the wall.  Door frame splintered, one jag scrawled up from base to near door’s tip, the wall about it indented and dusted pleasure billowed out with a bitter puff.  But then plaster liked to do that, and crumble.  Snapping up an empty orb of red and white he didn’t throw it –risk of it clattering about and making more dings in the walls and what not stopped him from doing this the right way. No, he did it the cheap way, it wasn’t a knife but it’d do and he stabbed the skull and hopped it’d hurt like hell.

And left a bruise, a nasty one.

The red light flared, the effect of the pokeball snapping up a creature was a lot like a vacuum marrying a laser pointer, where the light got more glaring the less there was to suck up.  The ball quivered and jerked, though the thing was out it’s rebellious spirit was rejecting it’s confinement, never mind he had both hands clapped around the red and white orb and he was holding on with everything he had.

A shrill chirrup from up high made him look up, at least until the ball nearly leapt out of his grip, then he was curled about it, not able to look up despite the calls.

A wad of something sticky and hot made him glare up at the ceiling… And, well worms with horns atop their heads couldn’t smile, but the thing was beaming now.  That and wiggling stubby limbs, a “ I’ll catch it” sort of  motion.

He didn’t know why, just did.  One toss and the thing didn’t catch it, but a thread of sticky white got the show started.  Almost faster than the trainer could see the yellow worm wheeled it’s prize to the ceiling and spat strings and wove them first starting with stripes of white, to web, to an impenetrable blob that might of held a pokeball the trainer wasn’t really sure anymore.

 What he was  sure of was that it’d stopped shaking a few layers in, one violent quiver had nearly dislodged the worm from its perch on the ceiling, but it held on and the orb held together.

And really… really that’s all that mattered.

Sinking to his knees the trainer slumped against the nearest wall, trying to catch breath and calm the shaking because he wasn’t cold damn it, not at all.

It took a while, when he opened his eye and found time had passed by the slant of shadows in the one roomed tick-tack apartment he’d called home for ages now.  Well years, it’d been years since his dodgy childhood had been left behind and he’d been legally emancipated, as for what time it was, he wasn’t sure.  He hadn’t bothered to get the scratch together to buy a clock.

Other thing’s had been important, rent and food and then there was staving off the blistering hit of rent again.  The pokechow the two ingrates were still going after had cost him a meal and a half and seriously they were still eating he hadn’t put that much dow-

A look to the counter, where the bag had been set, one edge gnawed away told him how it’d shrunk down so much and why the bowls had been scooted over a bit.

That got him standing and a quick rummage over back packs he’d taken as his from some other trainer a while back got him what he wanted.  Finding the two right red and white orbs took some effort, firing the wrong one set a red beam over the creatures who didn’t care enough to look up, they just kept eating and caught him nothing, those he shoved into pockets, maybe usable again, maybe not, he wasn’t sure he’d test them out later.  Finally the lazy unmoving things (still eating, the chunch crunch was unrelenting and whoever opened the pokeball was likely going to get rat vomit on them for their troubles) were sucked in and put into the smallest pocket of the backpack he could jam them in.

Petty, but fitting, he hoped they got cramps and puked, the worthless balls of fluff.

As for the less worthless ones, he tipped his gaze up, to the weedle who’d moved from ceiling’s center to its farthest edge, spitting strings into from edge to edge and weaving them together in a hammock.  He considered thanks, saying it, and the thing looked down at him, realizing it was being started at.  String hung like fermented mozzarella cheese in its stubby fore limbs, and after a while when nothing was said it went back to wheeling up strings and sticking them from point a to point b.

As for the trainer, he looked around and about a crunch drew his gaze to the bowl where the useful ratatta who’d tackled the squirtle was enjoying a nibble.  Again, that ghost of “should I say something” lead to a bit of staring and nothing being said at all.

Well that and a pair of slicked back ears, but after a growled chitter it went back to ignoring him and after a bit he was happy ignoring it.  Tipping the bag sideways, so the hole was pointing up, he picked up mess that the turtle had born and after a bit of realizing he had no clean towels drug up the least dirty of his laundry and sponged up spills as best he could.

Because the grungy box like place was both home and wasn’t his , and there’d be hell to pay unless he could get enough cash with odd jobs and _this_ job he’d taken up that the creature’d fought tooth and nail against best damn well pay good.

He’d be homeless if it didn’t.

Picking through pockets, a dive into the kiddie backpack he’d stolen got him halfway there, his couch and bed got him the rest, and despite how his hand shook he had enough and shoved the quarters in his pockets.  Kicking sopping odds and ends about he sacrificed a trash bag, shoveled the lot in as well as a few odd and ends not used to clean up all the water guns and set the lot over his shoulder.

“I’m heading out.”

Obvious that.  Still he’d said because why not?   A chirp from on high and some swaying from the hammock told him someone cared, a crunch from about the food bowl told him it was only one.  He had the care of a worm, go him.  Smirking at that thought he gathered up Shipped and Out, he’d see how that went and lay hints of other better water type offerings, and see what it got him.  Negotiating with the Rocket recruiter on the outskirts of Pewter’d give him something to do while the cloths were drying.

It was when he got there, during sorted that he’d found the badge that water type had earned him, grit colored and reminiscent of a rock assuming geology’s leavings were symmetrical.  It looked like something you’d get out a cereal box, some tacky collectable from such.  Turning it over in his hands he finally shoved it into his pocket to keep Shipped  and Out company.  He’d wave it about, make a fuss about skill and battles won, use it as proof if he wasn’t believed from word of mouth.

As an afterthought he left the door unlocked when he left.  Not the carelessness it seemed considering the ratatta who’d taken on that water hellion, no it was a matter of practicality.  Mobsters, like coppers, were quick with their guns, and after a while, well the food’d run out, and an unlocked door was easier to force open then a locked one.  


End file.
